Manspreading

Red Baron likes to learn new words. Today I read in the Badische Zeitung about Manspreading (with a capital M). The New York Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) uses posters to fight the bad habit of men taking up too much space on subway seats by spreading their legs. There is, however, a compelling argument frequently brought forward and hardened in many scientific publications: Keep it cool, man, your fertility. The MTA is mistaken: manspreading isn't about space but about cooling, or rather, a cool issue.

©MTA

How to translate manspreading into German? Mind you, neither Mannausbreitung (that sounds like spreading measles) nor Mannspreizung (a medieval method of torture?) sounds right in German, so I expect that "Manspreading" will become one of those words we will import from the States.

©MTA

When looking through other MTA posters, I learned another word: primping. Here we have a nearly perfect German equivalent at our disposal: aufhübschen. As for clipping, we don't clip our nails in Freiburg's streetcars; we cut them in the solitude of our bathrooms. Although I hate them, I keep one of those clippers in my hand luggage, because airports permanently confiscate scissors.

Remember: Keep it cool, man.
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